Thirty local high school students participating in the Velocity Prep summer internship program, presented by the Skillpoint Alliance Technology & Education Executive Council (TEEC) and the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce (GACC), showcased their work from the Allied Health and ROBOTECH programs at presentations on June 30, 2010.

Velocity Prep, now in its ninth year, engages high school students from varied backgrounds in 160 hours of work experience and exposure to career paths available in Central Texas. Velocity Prep is delivered as a four-week summer program and the students are paid for their work.  Industry  and community partners serve as Velocity Prep clients, “employing” the students as a consulting company to tackle an issue of importance to the client. Working with the client and other relevant experts, students research, plan, develop, and present specific project deliverables to address the client’s real-world problem in a hands-on setting, both on the school campus as well as at the client’s workplace.

The Allied Health and ROBOTECH teams were each led by two University of Texas students who served as project directors and ensured that the teams stayed on task and completed their deliverables for the clients.

The Allied Health Velocity Prep team delivered a comprehensive presentation and brochure detailing provisions of the new Health Care Reform Bill, on behalf of their client People’s Community Clinic, to executives from GACC, Tokyo Electron, the Superintendent and Associate Superintendent of Del Valle ISD, and family and friends.  The ceremony was held at Tokyo Electron’s Austin offices in East Austin. The presentation and its auxiliary materials, including professional leaflets and brochures, were compiled through exhaustive research, interviews of Austin citizens, and visits to the Dell Children’s Hospital, University of Texas (UT) School of Nursing, State Capitol, and Bodies Exhibit at the UT Stark Center.

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The ROBOTECH Velocity Prep team unveiled an omni-directional, human responsive robot named “TRIKEY” on behalf of their client Dr. Luis Sentis, a professor at The Human Centered Robotics Lab at the University of Texas at Austin. A PowerPoint presentation, documenting the processes employed in its creation, were delivered on the UT campus at the Vislab @ Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), to executives from Tokyo Electron, Meka Robotics,  representatives from the UT Department of Mechanical Engineering, and family and friends.  Key to the success of ROBOTECH Velocity Prep is exposure to the local engineering career path, which was made possible through site tours from TEEC partners, National Instruments, the UT Department of Mechanical Engineering, and Applied Materials.  In addition, National Instruments provided the team specialized LABVIEW software support to program their robot. 

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